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speciesism|10.22.05 Last week I went to Target because they finally put their back-to-school dorm room “furniture” on clearance and I’d been meaning to upgrade from my crappy butterfly chairs since around the time I got them. I returned to my car to find a bright green baby frog stowed away in that space between the trunk and the bumper. With nothing but concrete and moving vehicles as far as the eye could see I didn’t want to risk him jumping out into the parking lot when I opened the trunk. Or worse, into the car where he may never be retrieved and would slowly die of starvation next to that dried up old French fry under the passenger seat that I can’t quite reach. Trying to coax him into an emptied out cigarette carton just made him retreat further into the gap, so I threw my shit on the back seat and tried not to drive too fast or turn too sharply on the way home.
The thing is, not fifteen minutes before this, when I stopped to buy the carton of cigarettes that got dumped all over the floor, a man carrying a gas can tried to get my attention by yelling from across the parking lot. If it was the same "out of gas" guy I see walk by the store almost every day at work I’ll never know because he didn't leave my peripheral vision as I got into my car and drove away. I never have any cash on me anymore because it’s pretty much obsolete, unless you’re at a strip club or a yard sale I guess, but even if I did and he managed to reach me before I shut the door, I know I would have lied and said I didn’t. I don’t know, as much as I bitch about everyone being so fucking inconsiderate these days, I’ll go out of my way for a frog that will probably be squished the next time I pull out of the driveway or eaten and then regurgitated by my mom’s bulimic cat, but I could give a shit about whatever that guy’s plight may or may not be and not even really feel bad about it. I just wonder if I have my priorities straight. previous|next |